Some comments on AIDA documentation

> Hi,
>
> As requested, here are some editorial comments on the AIDA documentation.
>
> Best regards,
>
> M. Roberts
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> An editorial revision of the introductory page:
>
> http://www.aidaweb.si/general-introduction.html
>
> AIDA/Web is a web application server, which means it is also a framework
> for building dynamic web applications.
>
> An application server has the following general requirements: it must
> handle user identification, access control, manage user sessions and
> provide a security policy. It should provide developers with a proper
> environment for fast and simple web site building using a familiar
> language. It should not bother them with all the details of HTML.
>
> AIDA/Web satisfies all of these requirements with a strong framework,
> built using the Smalltalk language. The language is object-oriented,
> therefore each Aida web page is an object, constructed of sub-objects,
> such as web page elements. These can be combined into components that
> may be re-used for many different pages. Thus, Aida scales an
> object-oriented approach when building web pages and applications. The
> framework is also helpful for managing details, such as connecting web
> pages with hyperlinks. For example, it creates those links
> automatically, because the web link for Aida is just a reference (a
> pointer) between objects in the Smalltalk object model. Aida makes it
> possible to show each object as a web page, and links between objects
> become links between web pages.
>
> Aida allows the separation of software dealing with presentation from
> software in charge for the functionality of an application. In
> Smalltalk, this approach is known as MVC (Model View Controler), and it
> has recently been adopted in the world of Java (i.e., Struts). By
> organizing an application following the MVC approach, we can separate
> (and thereby simplify) the functional logic of the system from the
> introductory level, which is in many cases is more complex and demands
> more code. Without this separation, the functional layer gets mixed with
> the presentation code, which aggravates maintenance and development in
> the future. These problems are typical when building pages using ASP,
> JSP or PHP.
>
> By way of a conclusion, we'll dedicate a few words to the use of Aida in
> the field. Aida was developed in 1996 and has since been running a
> number of public and internal web sites. One of the first was a
> mountaineering site, called *Gore - Ljudje*, using Aida since 1999. This
> site includes both static and dynamic (Aida) web pages, including
> discussion forums, a browser, real time statistics and more. Because of
> its dedication to highly dynamic web pages, Aida has been used in many
> business applications on company Intranets. Some examples include: Gas
> Billing System (AIDA/GBS), Gas Management System (AIDA/GMS), Logistics
> (e-logis).
>
> Aida is available under an open source license, at www.aidaweb.si
> <http://www.aidaweb.si>. Since it is written in Smalltalk, it can be run
> using various operating systems, including Windows, different Unix
> systems, and Linux.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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